Combined rail anchor and ballast tamper



March 23, 1943. E, WOODINGQS.

COMBINED RAIL ANCHOR AND BALLAST TAMPER Filed Sept. 27, 1941 4 nimmvcxs.

Patented Mar. 23, 1943 COlYlBINED RAIL ANCHOR AND BALLAST TAMPER Emanuel Woodings, Oakmont, Pa., assignor to Woodings-Verona Tool Works, Verona, Pa., a corporation of Pennsylvania Application September 27, 1941, Serial No. 412,625

1 Claim.

This invention relates to devices for tamping ballast under railway track ties, and more particularly to such devices which are actuated by the wave motion of the rails as trains pass over them.

The railroads employ a large number of men who continually walk their tracks and tamp ballast under the ties, especially at the rail joints. If this is not done the rails will sag at the joints and not only make the road-bed rough but also cause damage to the rail ends which can be repaired only by building up the ends by welding, or by removing the rails from the ties and then cropping their ends and re-drilling them for the splice bars. The customary way to tamping ballast under the ties is to raise them by means of a bar or jack and then tamp ballast under them with a tamping pick. It is obvious that this type of maintenance of their tracks is a source of great expense to the railroads, and that the ends of many rails are damaged by the supporting ties sinking too far between tampings.

To decrease the cost of ballast tamping and to aviod intervals in which the rails are damaged because tamping m ay not have occurred frequently enough, it has been proposed to fasten devices to the rails beside the ties which make use of the wave motion of the rails as trains [pass over them to tamp ballast under the ties. These devices are metal bars bent to clamp on a rail base and extending down through the ballast [below the rail to the base of the tie. Whenever a train travels over the rail these tamping devices are pumped up and down in the ballast and thus force or tamp ballast under the tie. In so far as I know, however, these tamping devices are capable of gripping a rail only firmly enough to hold them thereon, and require a rail anchor to hold them beside the ties. Furthermore, as they extend down into the ballast, the tampers short circuit into the ground the electric signalling current flowing through the rails.

It is among the objects of this invention to :provide a rail-actuated ballast tamper which holds itself in place beside a tie, which also serves as a rail anchor, which is easily applied to a rail, which is highly efficient, and which does not drain electric current from the rails to the ground.

The invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawing in which Fig. 1 is a transverse section through a rail mounted on a tie with my ballast tamper in place; Fig. 2 is a cross section of the tie showing the tamper beside it embedded in ballast; and Fig. 3 is a view similar to Fig. 1 of a modification of this invention.

Referring to Figs. 1 and 2 of the drawing, a railroad rail I is mounted on a suitable tie plate 2 resting on a wooden tie 3 to which it is connected in the usualmanner by spikes 4. The tie is supported and held in place by the usual ballast 5 (Fig. 2) consisting of fine stones, gravel or the like. This ballast is packed under the tie to form a firm foundation for it and extends up both sides of the tie.

As the trains pass over the rail in the direction of the arrow shown in Fig. 2, the rail tends to creep inthe same direction. 'At the same time the trains cause an up and down or wave motion of the rail. In accordance with this invention this wave motion of the rail 'is taken advantage of to vpack ballast under the tie. For this purpose a ballast tamper is formed :from a substantially rigid bar of resilient metal clamped on the rail base beside the tie. The bar is bent to provide a jaw B at one end and a notched lug I at the opposite end connected together by an intermediate downw andly bowed portion. The jaw is :formed for receiving and resiliently but tightly gripping a rail base flange, while the not-ch 8 in lug 1 is formed for receiving or snapping over the edge of the opposite rail base flange. The distance .between the inside of the jaw and the notch is less than the width of the rail base so that the jaw and notch have to be spread apart in order to mount them on the rail. As the intermediate bowed portion of the bar strongly resists this spreading, the tamper tightly grips the rail base after it has been applied thereto. The grip of the tamper on the rail is further increased by the fact that the upper ends of the bowed portion bear against the bottom of the rail near its edges, and these bearing portions 9 and H] are distorted downwardly when the tamper is applied to the rail. To make the tamper relatively easy to apply to the rail with the usual track tools, the notched lug 'l is curved outwardly away from the rail so that its inner surface will engage the edge of the adjoining rail base flange after jaw 6 has been slipped over the opposite flange. It is then only necessary to raise the lug end of the temper by means of a crowbar or the like until the lug slides up far enough on the rail to permit its notch 8 to snap over the edge of the rail base. In order to accomplish this the bowed portion of the tamper must spread slightly and bearing portions 9 and 10 must be distorted downwardly, whereby the temper firmly grips the rail.

The tamping efiect is made possible by making the bowed portion of the tamper long enough to.

extend downwardly substantially to the bottom of the tie so that its lower end is buried in the ballast that surrounds the tie. Preferably, the sides H of the bowed portion are substantially parallel and their lower ends are connected by a substantially straight and horizontal cross member l2. Every time a train passes over the rail the rail moves up and down and this causes the bottom cross member of the tamper to pump up and down in the ballast and thereby pack or tamp it under the tie. As shown in Fig. 2, the bowed portion of the tamper preferably is canted or inclined relative to the tie in order to incline the lower surface of the bottom cross member upwardly toward the tie so that it will push the ballast laterally under the tie more effectively than if it were in a plane parallel with the bottom of the tie.

Another feature of this invention is that the tamper is insulated from the rail so that it will not short circuit the electric current flowing through the rail for signaling purposes into 'the ground, especially when the ballast is wet. For this purpose the inner surface of the tamper may be lined with a thin strip I3 of hard and tough insulating material such as fiber insulation. Although I have shown the insulating strip extending from end to end of the tamper it can be confined merely to the areas of the tamper that engages the rail. Where I have spoken herein about the inner surface of lug 1 engaging the rail it is to be taken as meaning directly engaging or indirectly engaging through insulation 13.

In the modification shown in Fig. 3 the lower ends of the sides [4 of the bowed portion of the tamper are inclined outwardly in opposite directions to produce a longer bottom cross member [5 for tamping ballast under thetie. The upper portions of the side members I 4 preferably are parallel, as in the firstembodiment, so that the force exerted by them against the rail will be substantially vertical. This will prevent any tendency of the upper end of the bowed portion 'to spread wider and spring the tamper 'off the rail. The bowed portion preferably is canted in the same manner as shown in Fig. 2 and for the same purpose. Likewise, this tamper is insulated from the rail in the same manner as the first embodiment.

A ballast tamper constructed in accordance with my invention grips the rail so tightly that it not only does not require a rail anchor to hold it in place, but it in itself serves as a rail anchor. Consequently, wherever one of my combined anchors and tampers is used it is unnecessary to use a separate rail anchor.

According to the provisions of the patent statutes, I have explained the principle and constructionof my invention and have illustrated and described what I now consider to represent its best embodiment. However, I desire to have it understood'that, within the scope of the appended claim, the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically illustrated and described.

I claim:

A combined rail anchor and ballast tamper formed from a substantially rigid piece "of resilient metalbent to form a downwardly bowed portion adapted to extend beneath a rail beside a tie with its upper ends in contact with the bottom of the rail, a .jaw at one end 'ofsaid bowed portion for receiving and gripping a rail base flange, and a notched lug extending upwardly from the opposite end of the bar with the inner surface of its upper end adap ed to preliminarily engage the edge of the adjoining rail'base flange to permit the lug to be raised to'snap its notch over said adjoiningflange and thus lock the bar on the rail, said bowed'portio'n extending downwardly substantiallyto the bottom of said tie and having a substantially straight and horizontal bottom whereby the wave motion of the rail as trains pass over it causes said "bottom of the bowed portion to tamp ballast under the tie, the sides of said bowed portion being substantially parallel from their upper ends part way 'down and then diverging to said bottom.

WOODINGS. 

